Kelly Moore of Des Moines, Iowa writes:
“I have been the number-one ‘community’ (just a fancy way of saying ‘unpaid’) blogger for a local magazine in our city for more than a year. The magazine is owned by our city’s daily newspaper. Consequently, I was able to find out that my page-views not only outshine the other magazine bloggers’ (staff included), they also stack up extremely well as compared to the daily newspaper’s own bloggers, including their print columnists.
“I’d like to parlay my readership success from this unpaid blog into a more high-profile (and hopefully profit-generating) pursuit. In particular, I’d like to pitch myself as a regular columnist for the daily newspaper, but I’m unsure how to go about it.
“You can see my blog. I write about parenthood (note I did not say ‘parenting,’ as that implies I dole out advice). My goal is to entertain by showing other moms and dads the humor in the every day of parenthood and to ease the guilt that seems almost epidemic these days.
“Hope you and your readers have some good suggestions for me…”
I think you could use the upcoming primary to your advantage! If your numbers are as good as they seem, you could offer interviews to the many candidates on the topics of parenthood (and talk about guilt over the constant travel of a campaign). What about Chris Dodd who, I believe, moved his children to Iowa public schools! Great move, and I’m sure he would love to talk about that commitment to Iowa!
Good luck, Kelly!
The largest publisher of home, garden, and niche magazines has its corporate headquarters in Des Moines. Meredith Corporation (Better Homes and Gardens)publishes “Parents” magazine. You might as well start at the top.
Get the name of the editor of “Parents” from the masthead and pitch your idea to her.She is probably already aware of the local magazine, so be sure to mention your experience there.
Also, be sure to include a link to the page of your blog that is the best possible example of your work (don’t expect anyone to read the whole thing).
These editors are REALLY busy, so don’t give up if you don’t hear anything right away (it took me six months to get hired as a freelance).
Perhaps you’ve not pitched this to the editor of the publication? If not, what do you have to lose and how would they know if you don’t let them in on your idea? I’m a writer and it’s a job like any other and should be a paid service, especially if you’re pulling in readers! A smart editor should be able to see that, but what’s that old saying about buying the cow? Editors who get writers to write for free don’t always offer pay, thinking it’s just a hobby for you or that your happy with just getting a byline. Now is a good time with the new year coming up and editorial calendars being worked out. I say go for it! Ask for pay and see what happens!
I just looked at your blog and I love it!
Since your readers are your strongest ally – why not involve them? Post a short message explaining that you’re passionate about what you’re doing, list the reasons why, and then tell them you need their help to go global (regional, national, etc). You could either (1) ask them to post their reasons for supporting you, loving your blog, etc, (2) ask them to send you an e-mail to the same effect and just include a few of the best in your blog or (3) set up a survey form asking them to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 things like how likely they would be to read a daily column that you wrote. Then you could take that feedback to the editor’s of the daily paper (or, like Lois suggested, to the Editor of Parents) and you would have concrete proof of how your column would be beneficial to them and their readers.
I’m the publisher of an SC local newspaper and that approach would be most convincing to me. It would make the decision almost a no-brainer 🙂
Hope that helps!
Don’t take this the wrong way but I think you need to expand on the “substance” of your blog as I just don’t see how you can translate what you write into a full time gig. I read through some of your past posts and while I’m sure your kids are adorable and do interesting things that’s what you mostly seem to talk about. To the average reader, it would get monotonous and probably boring. Especially if kids doing cute things isn’t your thing.
I imagine your blog gets a lot of hits because it looks like you post almost daily M-F while some of the others post anywhere from maybe once a week to even hardly once a month it looks like. I even see even one of the staff writers hasn’t wrote since last month! They probably aren’t going to get hits if they don’t post something new enough to get your attention. Blog hits alone isn’t going to get you a paid job writing. If you pimp yourself out enough anyone can get page hits, heck some people even get national audience for their blogs and don’t get paid a dime for doing it.
I’m sorry if this wasn’t what you wanted to hear but it’s the honest truth from a casual observer. I can’t fault you for thinking big though.
Kelly,
You have a difficult job ahead of you trying to become a paid columnist. That’s because newspapers are shrinking, staff members and columnists are being axed, and editors can buy syndicated columns from well-known writers for next to nothing.
That said, here are ways to land a paid gig:
–Find out which editor is responsible for the section where you want your column to appear.
–Ask for a meeting and quote statistics on how much more readership your blog receives.
–Ask the editor to run your column for free for several weeks, then ask readers for feedback. If feedback is positive and they decide to keep you, they pay you. But keep your fee low.
–I’d make the column very interactive. Throw out a question and invite parents to offer their best responses.
Good luck, and let us know if you’ve been successful.
Dear Kelly:
How about this–how about you go out and around town “filing stories” from different locations. Sort of an “Inside Iowa On Caucus Day as seen by and Iowan, with a baby, who “goes out and around town” to different locations even when it’s not Iowa Caucus Day”. (Did I just mix you up?). Anyway–I can’t do it and I’m not even sure I’d want to even if I “could” get to Iowa in the next 7 1/2 hours. So–good luck “stringer” and wear confortable shoes….
Signed
“About Renee Ashley Baker”
http://reneeashleybaker.wordpress.com